Speaking in June at the IISS Asia Security Summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono assessed the achievements of ASEAN to date, and urged collective efforts to achieve a “geopolitics of cooperation” for the future. But, he noted, this would require the support of the United States and China: “Both the US and China have an obligation, not just to themselves, but to the rest of the region to develop peaceful cooperation.” His argument is especially important in light of the collapse of the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Cambodia over differences in the South China Sea.

In “The IAEA’s Iran Report: Assessment and Implications,” November 8, 2011, the Arms Control Association in the US describes the main points of the Report and discusses its most significant implications. “The report suggests that Iran is working to shorten the timeframe to building the bomb once and if it makes that decision. But it remains apparent that a nuclear-armed Iran is still not imminent nor is it inevitable. The report should prompt greater international pressure on Tehran to respond more fully to the IAEA’s questions, allow for more extensive inspections of its nuclear facilities, engage more seriously in talks on its nuclear program, and to agree to confidence building steps to help resolve the crisis.”

The Chinese project to build its own space station by 2020 achieved a major step forward when, on November 3, 2011, a Shenzhou 8 capsule successfully docked with a Tiangon 1 module at 200 miles above Earth. Andrew Jacobs, writing “China’s Space Program Bolstered by First Docking,” in the New York Times, of November 3, describes the achievement. This achievement is especially significant since cooperation between Chinese and American space scientists has been obstructed by sanctions imposed on China after the Beijing massacre in June 1989, and China has had to build its program largely on its own. It is interesting that China aims to complete its space station just about the time that the International Space Station will be retired. The PRC has said that it would welcome scientists from other countries to participate in its activities, and exclude none — contrary to the way that China has been excluded from participation in the International Space Station.

This study, by Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, both from the Federation of American Scientists, is the best assessment of the nuclear weapons capability of the People’s Republic of China available. Published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November/December 2011, vol. 67, no. 6, pp. 81-87, they discuss the Chinese defense while paper, which asserted once again the PRC’s commitment to no first use and to building only a minimum nuclear deterrent, but they also evaluate China’s current deployments and likely future nuclear capabilities.

Unfortunately, we do not have a link for this article, but we wanted to put it up because it is one of the very best pieces to be published so far on the nuclear disaster in Tohoku, Japan: Evan Osnos, “The Fallout — Seven Months Later: Japan’s Nuclear Predicament,” The New Yorker, October 17, 2011, pp. 46-61.

Veteran journalist Bill Moyers, press secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s and prominent on American public television for many years, presents his view of the current political crisis in the US in “Our Politicians Are Money Launderers in the Trafficking of Power and Policy,” from Truthout, November 3, 2011.

Bill Marsh has done us all a great service by charting the complexities of the Euro crisis, in “It’s All Connected: A Spectator’s Guide to the Euro Crisis,” New York Times, October 24, 2011. You will need a broad projection to print Marsh’s chart, but it shows how the United States and its European Union partners are indebted and in debt to each other — while China, labelled as “the great unknown,” observes the evolving scene from afar, enjoying the world’s second largest economy and foreign currency reserves of more than $3 trillion.

There is evidence that the United States and Israel are engaged in what amounts to “counter-proliferation” in attempting to deal with Iran’s potential nuclear weapons program. In 2010, a Stuxnet attack was made on Iran’s centrifuges. According to press reports, Israel built centrifuges at their own Dimona facility like those used by the Iranians, perhaps with Siemans’ assistance, in order to know precisely how to design the cyber attack. Some estimate that a fifth of Iran’s centrifuges may have been damaged in the attack on their so-called Supervisory Control and Data Requisition (SCADA) system. Now, Richard Sale, in his article “US and Israel Tech Teams Develop ‘Malworm’ to Take Down Iran’s Computer Software,” in Truthout, November 2, 2011, describes a more ambitious project in which even US major software companies have been involved.

It seems to me that no sensible person wants the US or Israel to make a military attack on either Iran or the DPRK in order to try to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but what about a cyber attack? How might such an attack, or the threat of such an attack, fit into non-proliferation strategies?